Off the cuff: The question at the first of the 2009 season was how could a 36-3 team from 2008 improve. This 2009 team didn't quite have as good a record since this year's Heels finished 34-4. So, the Tar Heels, using better defense, did the only thing they could do to improve and get redemption from the loss to Kansas in the Final Four last year - they won the NCAA tournament. The Tar Heels did it in style as they beat every opponent by double figures and had perhaps the best half of basketball in the history of the NCAA finals in the first half against Michigan St. The highlight of the welcome home celebration may very well have been Danny Green when he said, "We did it y'all, we did it. But the way we did it though, did you see how we did it?" The crowd went wild. As one of about 75 people watching the UNC plane land, I started wondering if I might be watching another piece of history - a disaster. You see, the plane approached for a landing but started wiggling back and forth and suddenly the wheels went back it and the plane went back up. The aborted landing came about due to high winds. The plane circled around and landed a few minutes later coming in from the other direction. At the first of the season, UNC coach Roy Williams said the best Tar Heel teams he had ever seen were 1982, 1984, 2005 and 2008. This 2009 team certainly joins that list. "If I'm lucky enough to coach another 20 years," Coach Williams said at the welcome home celebration, "it's gonna be awfully hard for kids to give me the memories that this club did. But I will always remember, not just the wins, but the fun, the laughs and I'll remember how lucky Roy Williams was to be their coach." This group of seniors, led by Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green, have more wins than any senior class in UNC history. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington will be going pro and foregoing their senior year. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Ellington stayed. How many ACC players have turned pro after their junior season without making the first, second or even third team All-ACC team? He had a great tournament, no doubt, so we'll have to see where he might go in the draft. Some are indicating that Ed Davis might turn pro. While I think it was a mistake for Marvin Williams to turn pro after his freshman season, he averaged five more minutes a game and five more points a game than Davis. So, certainly Davis, who will play in the pros one day, should stay in school. He says he will. Carolina has gotten a lot of good publicity over the fact that Hansbrough, Green, Lawson and Ellington all stayed in school last year. Hansbrough especially has been rightly praised. I hope this starts a trend of guys staying in school longer though I doubt it. Doug Gottlieb, ESPN analyst, and some others have minimized Hansbrough's accomplishments and reject placing him among all-time college basketball elites because he says it's a down year for college basketball due to defections to the NBA. Does he really think that during his four years, Hansbrough played more inferior players than 7-foot-2 Lew Alcindor did in 1968? There were very few players even over 6-foot-8 back then. Hansbrough played against better players and deserves to be mentioned in the same category as Alcindor, Walton, Robertson and the rest. I still say the two best colllege players I ever saw were Phil Ford and David Thompson but Hansbrough is certainly in the conversation. Alcindor, of course, was dominating but going up against players so much smaller, he should have been. Others, for the same reasons, are refusing to place this year's Carolina team among the top 10-15 teams of all time despite the overwhelming performance in the tournament. I'd have to study it more but to dismiss them out of hand is a mistake. The 2009 Carolina team should be in the conversation as a top 15 all-time team but they probably had too many regular season losses (4) to be considered much higher. In the preseason, the ACC writers picked the final finish order as North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, Miami, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Georgia Tech, N.C. State, Florida State, Boston College and Virginia. My finish had Clemson flipped ahead of Miami and Florida State ahead of N.C. State. Both those things came true so I'll toot my horn that my poll was better. For the record, the final standings were North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest, Florida State, Clemson and Boston College, Maryland and Virginia Tech and Miami, N.C. State, Virginia, and Wake Forest. While my NCAA bracket was average, it was at least as good as President Obama's who also picked Carolina to win it all. If someone complains that Roy Williams is making too much money - even more than the president in 2009 - just paraphrase Babe Ruth and say, "Coach Williams is having a better year." If you'd like to sponsor this award-winning site, or agree or disagree with something written, please let me know by emailing me. |
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